


sometimes my arms bend back

by OpheliaMarina



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Twin Peaks Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6875890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaMarina/pseuds/OpheliaMarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At eight in the morning, the world always feels cold and lonely, and it’s hard to tell the difference between dawn and death, even when it's Rachel Amber that's been snuffed out. </p><p>(Max doesn't know where Chloe is.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	sometimes my arms bend back

**Author's Note:**

> If any of you were wondering if I've seen the Twin Peaks pilot, I have. (Thanks to Bri and Amy for beta'ing.)

It’s a chilly, loud morning the day Rachel Amber is found in a plastic bag at the watery edge of town, and even before anyone knows she’s dead it’s already like the world is trying to fill the space she leaves behind.

Later, Max wants to say she already knew something was wrong, that it was easy to sense the world was emptier without Rachel in it. But at eight in the morning, the world always feels cold and lonely, and it’s hard to tell the difference between dawn and death. 

Victoria’s forcing her feet into a pair of heels three lockers down, and scowls when she looks up to see Max looking at the arch of her calves. So Max looks away, too quickly probably, nearly loses the balance of her books before messily shoving all of them into her locker.

“Max.”

This time Max really does drop something, her camera, but the squeak is barely out of her mouth before a blue-nailed hand reaches out and catches it, barely an inch out of her own hands. Max breathes a sigh of relief, closing her locker and turning around. “Hey, Chloe. Thanks for saving my life.”

Chloe nods, a little distractedly, passing Max’s camera back and raking her free hand through her hair. She looks kind of terrible- her hair is mussed, there are dark circles under her eyes, and her shirt’s wrinkled under her leather jacket, but she’s still unfairly attractive despite that, and Max hates her for it. “Always will. Cute sweater, by the way.”

Max smiles, tugs the sleeves a little higher up her shoulders. “Thanks. It’s my mom’s.”

“I figured. I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

Chloe smiles, for a second, and Max hugs her journal to her chest, the way girls do in pictures sometimes, the way Rachel does when she wants a boy to do something for her. The way that makes people feel like you’re in love with them. 

Then Chloe’s smile fades, quickly, and she steps up into Max’s space, intimate and secretive. The hinges of the locker press into Max’s back, and the aimless chatter of the Blackwell hallway goes muffled, fading away. 

She whispers, “What is it?” even though she knows Chloe will tell her unprompted. She always feels like she needs to take some responsibility for what Chloe says before she says it. Rachel would laugh and says it’s for the best, really, that she and Chloe have needed a mom friend. Max has never wanted to be their mom, but she does want to be needed. 

“It’s nothing, really,” Chloe mutters, but she’s barely looking at Max, just at Max’s hands, at how they clench around themselves. Then, “Have you seen Rachel yet today?”

Not nothing. Max’s arms go tighter around her notebook. “No. Why? Have you?”

“No,” Chloe mutters, and casts a cursory look over her shoulder when Victoria walks by them, passing a glance Max’s way that’s composed of some curiosity but mostly disgust. Chloe waits till Victoria’s rounded the corner, then puts a hand on Max’s hip and drags her closer. Her nose ends up in Chloe’s shoulder, Chloe’s lips by her ear.

They’re too close for school.

“I was with her last night,” Chloe says, and that in itself doesn’t mean anything, Chloe has always been with Rachel last night. Max’s heart sinks anyhow. “She was acting weird. I just wanted to check up on her today.”

It’s not Chloe’s job to worry about Rachel- that’s always been a task Max has been happy to shoulder, worrying about the two of them while they just threw caution into the seabreezy winds of Arcadia. Max shifts her head to look at Chloe, but there’s not enough space between them, so her whispered, “How weird?” ends up buried in Chloe’s collarbone. 

She smells like leather, like she always does, smoke like she always does, and something else, something salty and biting. Max can’t tell if it’s in her hair or her breath. 

“Just Rachel weird,” Chloe says, but it’s evasive. They both know Rachel-weird, and Chloe doesn’t ask after it. Rachel-weird is long diatribes lying upside-down on Max’s bed, ripped up photographs at the bottom of boxes, ugly colors of lipstick in dark lines down Chloe’s forearm. It’s not enough for Chloe to press so close to Max in a schoolway, like she’s trying to draw answers out of her skin the way Rachel draws out secrets. “Can you-”

The bell rings. Max jumps, then immediately fixes her skirt, falling a step back and hitting her head on the lockers. “Ow! Jesus.”

Chloe falls a step back too, still looking at her with that same bottomless dark look in her eyes. She tugs her jacket farther up her shoulders, and waits. Max looks at her, then away, shoves her journal and her camera in her bag. 

“She’ll show up,” she says, because it’s Rachel. She can never be out of the public eye too long. “Are you gonna come to class?”

When she looks up, beseeching this time, Chloe’s smiling again, just a tiny bit, and this time it doesn’t fade. “Depends. Are you gonna keep looking at me with those big doe eyes?”

Max rolls them instead. “As if that’s ever worked to get you to go to class.”

“Not true,” Chloe protests, like she means it. She falls into step beside Max when she turns in the direction of the classroom, ruffles her hair and lets her fingers trail down the wool that covers her spine. “Max Caulfield, those eyes of yours, holy hell. I’d do anything for ‘em.”

The tension, whatever it is, is broken then, even if just temporarily. Max laughs and shrugs her off. “Then get off! Go to your desk, God.”

Chloe pouts, planting both hands on Max’s desk as Max eases herself into it, pulls out her notebook and pencils. “Free reign over me, Max, and your first decree is for me to get off?”

“Go to your desk!” Max says, imperious and giggly, and Chloe grins at her, leans down quickly to ruffle her hair again before traipsing to the back of the classroom, slow and languid. Max resists the urge to watch her go, just grins a little at Taylor when the girl looks over at her, Victoria whispering something undoubtedly barbed in her ear.

The birds outside won’t shut up. 

\---

“Rachel Amber?”

 

Because Rachel is at the beginning of everything, always. Roll call’s no exclusion. 

But she’s still not here. 

There’s a very long pause. Max glances back, first at Rachel’s still vacant seat and then at Chloe beside it, and Chloe’s not lounging anymore. She’s sitting up straight, and there’s a pencil held tightly between her fingers. She glances, once, at Max, then away. 

Ms. Grant frowns at the roll call sheet, shrugs, then moves on. “Alyssa Anderson?”

Max is still looking back when she hears a “Maxine Caulfield?”, and has to snap her attention forward again. “Here!”

That gets her a brief smile from Ms. Grant, but she can’t force herself to return it. She looks back at Chloe again, at Rachel’s empty seat. 

In all the time Max and Chloe have known Rachel, at least one of the two of them has always known where she is. 

A bird hits the window, hard, in the middle of Victoria Chase’s name, and Max yelps, snapped out of her reverie and immediately embarrassed by the sound of her own voice. There’s some twitching and murmuring throughout the room, and Victoria’s spine goes straight but she doesn’t react otherwise.

And when Max looks away from the crack in the window, there’s a policeman in the doorway. 

It’s like the feeling of being underwater, suddenly, everything slowed down and muffled and muddled. Max stares, feeling like her brain has stopped, or rather just relegated to reciting obvious facts, instead of piecing them together. It’s Officer Berry. He shouldn’t be here. Something bad has happened.

Something bad has happened. 

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he says, in his deep voice Max has always liked till this moment. “Is Nathan Prescott in this class?”

Ms. Grant frowns, looking around. “No-no, I’m sorry, Officer. I believe he’s in- room 107?” She looks to Max for confirmation, and Max nods, feeling numb. “Room 107, that’s it.”

She looks down again, as though to continue on with roll call, but Officer Berry stays where he is. He says, “Ma’am, can I speak to you privately for a moment?”

Another bird hits the window, hard, and that’s when Max knows exactly what’s happened. 

She looks back at Rachel’s empty seat, in some vain hope that this is some awful practical joke that could only come out of Rachel’s head, backwards and selfishly validating. Briefly she remembers Rachel saying, idly, _I’d like to be able to go to my own funeral_ , weeks or months ago Max can’t remember, and feels nauseous. 

But Rachel still isn’t there. So Max glances over at Chloe, and it’s like she’s not there either- the complete blankness of horror in her face makes Max desperately want to look away, but she can’t, she can’t, it’s Chloe. Chloe meets her gaze for a split second, eyes huge and shining and terrified, and the pencil in her hand snaps. 

The nibbed part goes flying, rolling across the floor, and Max’s gaze follows it unwillingly all the way back up to the front of the classroom. Officer Berry has left, and Mrs. Grant’s back up at her desk. She’s clenching the wooden edge of it, and shaking.

She says, “There’s- there’s going to be an announcement-”

There’s the hard screeching sound of metal against tile, and Chloe walks to the front of the classroom in short, smooth motions, then right out the door, not looking back.

Max bursts into tears.

\---

School’s cancelled twenty minutes later. Max jumps out of her seat, grabs her bag, and tears out of the room. 

Her eyes still sting, and her throat hurts, but the sobbing’s over at least. She’s not really one for weeping much, especially public crying, but Jesus Christ. 

Rachel dead. 

Rachel Amber, killed by somebody. Even now, Max can’t imagine anything weaker than the sun having the power to wrest Rachel’s life from her. She was the kind of person who lives forever, is young forever.

Young forever. Max stops for a second, in the middle of the hallway, to dry heave, and that turns out to be against her advantage.

“Hey, selfie ho!”

She winces, and turns, throat still sore and full from crying. “Victoria, this _really_ is not the time-”

But she hasn’t even turned all the way around before she’s struck across the face, so hard that she’s thrown back a few steps. She stumbles, stunned and smarting, and Victoria just keeps moving forward, completely livid. Courtney and Taylor hang back- Max thinks they were probably as surprised by Victoria hitting her as she was.

“Not so tough without your girlfriend and that dead bitch around, huh?” Victoria hisses, stalking closer. There are two red spots, high in her cheeks, and if Max didn’t know better she’d think Victoria had been crying too. “Go on, Max, say something smart.”

Max doesn’t have time or tears to waste on Victoria. Rachel’s gone and Chloe’s disappeared. “Rachel’s dead, Victoria,” she says, choked, more tired than anything else. “Can you find someone new to harass for one day? Like, in her memory?” 

Victoria swings at her again, and Max just manages to duck in time, hurrying back a few steps. “Nathan’s been arrested for suspicion of murder, you _bitch_!” Victoria shrieks. “You’re gonna talk about her fucking memory? It’s about to send Nathan to _jail_!”

There’s blood in her mouth. Max drags a hand across her face, but only tears come away, so she just swallows it down. “That’s not my problem,” she says, and it isn’t, she fucking hates Nathan Prescott. Even if he didn’t kill Rachel, it’d probably be justice to throw him in jail in her honor anyway. “Maybe if Nathan made more of an effort to not look like someone who kills teenage girls-”

A shriek comes out of Victoria at that, and Max is bracing herself for another slap when suddenly a hand appears out of nowhere and jerks her out of the way.

When she opens her eyes, Warren’s tugging her by the elbow down the hallway, at impressive speed, shooting a wary look over his shoulder at where Victoria and her posse are being confronted by a cold-voiced Mrs. Grant. “Are you okay?”

Max blinks at him, twice. “Warren?”

“Crazy bitches,” he mutters under his breath, then, softer, “Do you need a ride home, Max? Where’s Chloe?”

That snaps Max out of the dizziness Victoria had sent her into, back into fresh panic. “I don’t know where Chloe is- Warren, have you seen Chloe, I don’t know where she is, I-”

The morning air hits her like a slap in the face when Warren ushers her outside, and he shushes her, looking around furtively. “I haven’t seen her, sorry. But I’m sure she’s fine. It’s Chloe.”

Those are two incredibly contradictory statements. Max shakes her head, hard, and looks in a sweeping, wild-eyed circle around the Blackwell grounds. “She’s not fine! Rachel’s _dead_ , Warren, I have to-”

She goes to jerk out of his grip, go find Chloe herself, but he just holds her there, tightening his hold on her elbow. “Are _you_ fine?”

It’s such an inane question that she just stares at him for a moment, confused at how she’s supposed to respond. “Rachel’s dead,” she repeats, dumbly, then without much warning to Warren, or to herself, really, bursts into tears again. 

Crying isn’t gonna help anything, though, so she goes to lift her hands up to her face, dry her eyes. They get trapped, suddenly, against Warren’s chest as he awkwardly embraces her, and she winces, her elbows digging into her ribs. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, uncertainly. “You knew her really well.”

Max gives a choked little laugh, her hands clenched so tight on themselves they hurt. “I didn’t know Rachel.”

“Come on, you and Chloe were closer to her than anybody. Of course you did.”

She shakes her head, her bangs grinding against the fabric of his shirt. “No one did.”

He rubs her back, once but vigorous, and she pulls away from him then, suddenly unable to put up with pity a second longer. They fall a step back from one another, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. “Can I take you home?” Then, frowning at the Victoria-marked flush of her cheek, “... can I take you to somebody?”

She shakes her head at the idea of somebody, then hedges. “Um. You know where the Price house is?”

\---

It’s David who answers the door, and he doesn’t look surprised to see her. 

“Hello, Max,” he says, and his voice is somber, at least, low. She almost doesn’t recognize the sound of it non-confrontational. “I expected you’d come by.”

“David,” she says, in a weak semblance of a hello. “Is Chloe-”

He’s already shaking his head. “She was in and out earlier. About five minutes before I heard the news, she didn’t bother telling me herself. Kinda hoped she was the one bringing you over here, but-”

“Warren,” Max says shortly, then shakes her head when he looks over her shoulder for a car. “I told him he could go.”

That gets her a mildly disapproving look. “You’ve got that boy wrapped around your finger, you know. You ought to know better than to lead him on, Max.”

Max really wishes it had been Joyce to answer the door. “David, this is literally the least of my problems right now,” she says tersely. “Did Chloe say anything when she was here earlier? Anything at all?”

He huffs, mustache bristling, then reaches into his pocket. “Matter of fact, she asked me to give you this. Pretty much all she said to me.”

Relieved, she rips the note out of his hand, unfolds it with shaking fingers.

_meet me in the 2 whales parking lot after 9:30_

So Chloe hasn’t skipped town. Or offed herself. Max hugs the note to her chest, briefly, before tucking it into her own pocket. “Thank you, David. I- tell Joyce I said hi, okay? I think it’s time for me to go home.”

He grunts, which is David’s standard goodbye, so she’s reasonably startled when she turns and he grabs her elbow, pulling her back a step. “Hey-”

“I’m sorry about this,” he says, and for a second her heart’s in her throat, someone’s out there who killed Rachel Amber and it could be anyone, “but. The police want to ask you some questions. I told them I’d bring you over to the station if you showed up around here.”

The last thing Max wants to do right now is to talk to any more people, especially police officers. “David, I really don’t want to right now. Can I- tomorrow-”

“I know, Max,” he says, and he at least is making an effort to sound sympathetic. “But they need as much information as they can get right away, and you’re one of the people closest to her. It’s very important.”

She’s shaking her head, hard, swinging in an arc from side to side. “David, I can’t-”

“Listen,” he says, sudden, his voice lower and closer. “Chloe’s disappeared off the face of the earth this afternoon, and that makes her look guilty as all hell. If you love that girl, you’ll go in there and convince those FBI men that she ain’t a murderer, understand?”

So Max goes. 

\---

“What was your relationship to Rachel Amber?”

Max blinks. There are two men in the room with her, and they’re all just sitting at a table. No one’s shining a flashlight at her, but her eyes still hurt. “Um. She’s- she was my best friend. Other than Chloe.”

“Price?”

“Uh. Yes.”

“Do you know where Miss Price is at the moment?”

She winces. “No, sorry.” Then, hurriedly, “The last time I saw her she was very upset.”

The two men glance at each other, and Max fidgets. Then one of them slides her a piece of paper. She flips it over, and it’s Nathan’s yearbook picture.

Her lip curls.

“Do you recognize this boy?”

It’s hard to refrain from rolling her eyes. “Yes. Nathan Prescott.”

“A classmate of yours. Do you like him?”

She doesn’t really think about the consequences of telling the truth to this question. “No.”

“Did Rachel Amber?”

Rachel’s voice. _Nathan’s an asshole, but he makes me sad sometimes, you know_? “No.”

“Does it seem feasible to you that Rachel Amber and Nathan Prescott could have had a sexual relationship without public knowledge?”

This time a laugh rises in her throat, instinctual, before her mind remembers it’s the police asking this question and not a slightly tipsy, leering Chloe. “... no. Not at all.”

They glance at each other again. Max feels sick. The men slide her another photo.

She turns it over, and her stomach flips. _Shit_.

“Do you know this man?”

Her palms close, then open. “Um. N-not his name, just his face.”

“How do you know him?”

 _Fuck_. “He’s, um. Well, he’s a drug dealer. Everyone knows that.”

“Did Rachel ever buy from him?”

Rachel’s voice, giggly and secretive, hot on her ear. _Listen, Max, you absolutely cannot tell anyone about me and Frank. Especially Chloe, she’d completely freak. Okay? This is our secret_. “I- I don’t know. I’m not involved with drugs.”

“Did Rachel smoke?”

“Well- yes.”

“Did Rachel do drugs other than marijuana?” 

Probably. “I- I don’t know.”

“Was it Chloe that started Rachel on marijuana?”

Max closes her eyes. “No, Rachel always smoked.”

“You told us you met Rachel when she and her family moved to Arcadia Bay six years ago. How long have you and Chloe Price known each other?”

She doesn’t open them yet. “Always.”

When she finally does look again, the police are waiting, just staring at her. She just stares back. She can lie about Frank, but she can’t lie about Chloe. 

“Only one more set of questions, Miss Caulfield. One moment.”

The TV at the corner of the room flickers on. Max jumps a little in her seat seeing it for the first time, then a voice rises, crackly, from the dusty speakers, and her gut twists.

“... _that fucking thing off, I swear to God_.” Chloe, almost exactly like she was today but happier, framed in a golden sunset with a cigarette between her lips, grinning exasperatedly at the camera. 

Then Rachel, Rachel, alive and horrifyingly beautiful, crashing into the view of the lens, grinning like a maniac with a joint between her fingers. “No, wait, leave it on, leave it on. It’s a good shot, right? Of course it is, it’s you.” An embarrassed, flustered giggle behind the camera. “I’m gonna recite some Milton, this can be my college essay.”

“Oh my god, Rachel, shut the fuck up.” Chloe, amused and throaty with the smoke still between her lips. 

“You shut the fuck up, I’m starting. Ahem. _Abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is_ -”

Chloe, laughing, coming closer, “Shut up and pass the joint, you pretentious asshat.”

Determined, still staring at the camera like she’s taking vows, Rachel shaking her head. “Shut up! _And saw Virtue in her own shape how lovely; saw and pined his lo_ -”

Then she shrieked, suddenly airborne, sandy hair flying everywhere in the breeze as Chloe lifted her and spun her around, away from the camera. “That’ll teach you to shove smart things down our throat, Miss Literary Scholar-”

“Put me down! Put me down! Just because you heathens can’t appreciate art-”

The voice behind the camera was laughing, helplessly, and Rachel finally shoves off Chloe and comes stumbling towards the lens again, smiling radiantly. “Ah, well, that’s ruined. Turn the camera off, beautiful, come and join the par-”

The video pauses itself, frozen at the end of its life, Rachel’s face magnified and smiling across the whole screen. Max realizes with a jolt that she’s crying again, and hurriedly wipes her eyes.

“Are you the person who filmed this video?”

She has to swallow, hard, twice. “Y-yes.”

“Where were you girls when this video was made?”

It’d been obvious from the shot of the lens- Max remembers being careful to frame the sun and sea and tower and Rachel, altogether, so the question makes her nervous. “By, um, by the lighthouse. Why?”

They glance at each other again. Max wish she didn’t look so young, wishes she wasn’t young and in high school and crying, so they’d treat her like an adult. One says, slowly, “Did you know Rachel Amber’s body was found beneath the lighthouse’s cliff this morning?”

There’s always been something evil about that lighthouse, but Max never knew it was murderous. Her jaw goes slack. “N-no.”

One writes something on his notebook and passes it to the other one. Max sinks back in her seat, trying not to think of a mottled-blue Rachel lying cold and still in the sand. 

“Did Rachel Amber have romantic feelings for Chloe Price?”

Max nearly jumps out of her seat, then, involuntarily, looks back at the television. Rachel, centered, smiling. “I- I don’t know.”

“Is it possible?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know, Rachel wouldn’t have told me if she did.”

“Weren’t you her best friend?”

Her fingernails dig into her palms. “She didn’t tell me everything. She didn’t need to tell us everything! People are allowed to have secrets.”

Now they’re both just looking at her again. She glances their way, then back to Rachel’s frozen face, unable to bear any of it. 

“Did Chloe Price have romantic feelings for Rachel Amber?”

Now tears are stinging her eyes again, making Rachel go shimmery. “I don’t know! I don’t know.”

“What do you think?”

She touches her eyes. “I don’t know, you’re not supposed to- hang on, I’ve seen legality shows, you shouldn’t be asking me what I think, or _anything_ , I don’t have a lawyer!”

“Miss Caulfield-”

“No,” she says, and she stands up, reaches for her things. “I’ve answered your questions, I’m going home.”

And they let her go. 

\---

It’s almost 8:30 when her parents want to sit down and talk about it, and Max loves her parents like crazy, but they have such terrible timing.

“You really shouldn’t have said anything without a lawyer, sweetheart,” her father says to her, and she nods, sinking back further into the cushions, into her mother.

Vanessa’s stroking her hair. “She did so well considering how horrible the situation was. I’m certainly going to have to have words with Mr. Madsen, though. What was he thinking, just bringing you down to the station-”

“They think Chloe might have done it,” Max says, short, flat. “They think Chloe might have killed Rachel.”

Silence, for only a moment.

“God, who could think that?” Vanessa says, hand paused at the top of Max’s head. “Chloe loved that girl to death.”

Max flinches, hard, and Vanessa cringes, catching herself just a second too late. Ryan gives Vanessa an exasperated look, then sits on the ottoman across from them, puts his own hand on Max’s face.

“Well, that’s just not true,” he says, “and once Chloe has some time to herself and some sense back in her, she’ll be able to prove it, and then they’ll find the bastard that actually did this.”

With Rachel dead, Max doesn’t have much faith in the world to do anything right anymore. She just shakes her head.

Ryan and Vanessa glance at each other, then Vanessa says, gently, “Max, sweetie, this is a horrible, horrible thing that’s happened, and I know your heart must be broken. If you want, I can call grandma in Seattle, and we can go up and stay with her for a couple of days, just the three of us. How does that sound?”

It’s half an hour to 9:30, and Max can’t drive, so she needs at least twenty minutes to reach the Two Whales on foot. “No- no. I want to stay in town, I want to be with everybody for this. For now, though, um. I just kinda wanna sleep.”

Her mother’s emphatic, “Of _course_ , honey,” makes her feel a little guilty, but she steels herself like she knows Rachel would have done, like she had done every day in the life that’s over now, and brings the window key up with her.

She’s never been very good at sneaking out of her bedroom- Chloe’s always been better at sneaking in. She scrapes her knee on the way down, but the night is so loud with birds and crickets and crying that her gasp of pain is invisible.

\---

There’s a lot more people in the Two Whales parking lot than there should be at 9:30 at night when Max gets there, panting a little and fixing at her shoes. She frowns, confused, into the black crowd, a sea of faces flickering faintly against the gravel.

“Max?” says a soft voice, and she spins around, nearly shrieks before seeing Kate Marsh, who looks small and gaunt with a lit candle just beneath her chin.

She presses a hand to her chest, and when she takes a step back she bumps into someone. This crowd is too large by far. “Kate! You scared me. What’s going on here?”

Kate extends the candle, gracefully, and Max just stares at it before she realizes she’s meant to take it. She doesn’t. “A candelight vigil, for Rachel. It was kind of last minute.”

Just like Rachel’s death was, Max supposes. She almost laughs. She doesn’t. “Kate, have you seen Chloe?”

That elicits a tiny frown, drawn up in shadow as Kate brings the candle back towards her own face. “No, not yet. Mr. and Mrs. Madsen are here, but I haven’t seen-”

“Kate, I’m so sorry, but I have to look for her, all right?” Max says, hissing too loud over the murmuring throng of townsfolk. She feels out of place here, sacrilegious and guilty. “If you see her, tell her I’m here!”

Kate’s “all right” fades away under the crackling of tiny flames, and Max keeps pushing through the crowd, head down, eyes up. There are a lot of mothers. There are a lot of strangers. There are so many people who didn’t know Rachel.

Everyone is a stranger now.

“Caulfield!”

Max’s spine goes tense. She knows that voice. It’s strange, like the others, but she knows it, and it doesn’t belong here. 

She doesn’t turn. 

“I _see_ you, bitch!”

There’s rustling in the crowd, people turning around to look at her. Max breathes in, holds her shoulders high, like Rachel would have done, curls her fists like Chloe would do, and turns. 

Nathan’s apparently not in jail anymore. It’s not as much of a surprise as it should be. “Get lost, Nathan.”

“What did you just say to me?” he barks, and it appears Rachel’s death hasn’t put any sort of damper on how loud he talks. Or his entitlement issues. People all around the parking lot are going quiet. “Who the hell do you think you are, painting me like a fucking murderer?”

“I didn’t do anything to you, Nathan,” Max says, slow and patient. “People are here for Rachel right now, could you please- just- just show some respect.”

Even in the darkness, she can see the vein in his forehead bulge. “How about you show some respect, you fucking dyke?” he shouts, and in an instant he’s right in front of her, hand around her throat, and she chokes, surprised and scared.

“Step off, son!” comes a voice from over Nathan’s right shoulder, and in the spotty night Max sees David, pulling Nathan off her, and for a second there’s relief. Then Nathan bellows, knees David in the crotch, shoves him to the ground, and grabs Max again, this time by the jaw. She goes to scream, and he slams her mouth shut, and she tastes blood.

“You want to know who it was killed her?” he whispers. “It wasn’t my fault! I ought to snap your fucking neck, Caulfield, it was _you_ that-”

Then he screams, and comes off of her, and suddenly Chloe’s in his place instead, eyes blazing, face tight with fury in a way Max has never seen before. She can’t tell what Chloe did to him, whatever it was it was too fast, but now Nathan’s cowering, falling a few steps back.

“If you ever,” Chloe says, low and dangerous, dragging Max hard into her side, “ _ever_ , touch her again, I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you, understand? If you ever _look_ at her again!”

Nathan limps away, whimpering and whining, and Max heaves a shaky breath, swallows the blood in her mouth and clutches at Chloe’s jacket, buries her face in it for just a moment. One of Chloe’s arms goes around her waist, the other up to her hair, tilting her head back.

“Did he hurt you?” Chloe says, and there’s something beyond the usual fierceness in her voice as she frames Max’s face with her hands, searching across it with sharp eyes and cool fingers, something that’s borderline feral. Max swallows, and wishes she could sink further into her own skin, further into the feeling of Chloe’s hands. “Are you okay?”

Max opens her mouth to say _yes_ , or _he didn’t hurt me_ , or _what’s happening_ , but when her lips part they tremble, and Chloe’s gaze catches on their quiver immediately. It traps the words behind Max’s mouth, and nothing comes out but a vague, anxious noise, half-sob.

For a second Chloe’s eyes widen, startled and sad, but then she looks over her shoulder, without letting go of Max’s face. Max stands on her tiptoes to look too. Officer Berry is helping David stand up, clearly off duty but clearly present.

“Let’s go,” Chloe breathes, and her fingers move from Max’s cheeks to her hand, tugging her subtly but forcefully in the direction of her bike. “Come on, Max.”

The police are probably on their way right now. They probably still think Chloe killed Rachel. 

“Come on,” Chloe says, tugging her sharp when Max lingers. “Come on, baby, come on.” 

Max trips over a fallen candle, and Chloe steadies her, one hand on her forearm. They’re stuck in a place of half-meeting bodies for a moment, standing still, then Chloe lets go of her arm and holds harder onto her hand and says, “You snuck out?”

“I had to,” Max says. “Chloe, the police-”

“I know,” Chloe says tersely, leading Max to her motorcycle and straddling it. “I figured. Come on, we can’t talk here.”

For a split, split second, Max hesitates. Then she hates herself for it, when Chloe’s eyes go hard and hurt and her grip tightens on the handlebars. Her foot lifts, impatient, to the pedals. 

Hurriedly, Max climbs on behind her, wraps her arms around Chloe’s waist. Chloe’s so thin under her jacket, all ribs and tough muscle beneath thin skin; Max wonders if this is how Chloe felt to Rachel, when she touched her, all sinew and roughness, or if there was something Rachel got out of Chloe that Max has yet to touch. 

“Your parents are going to fucking murder me if the cops don’t,” Chloe says, and revs the engine, pulls it out of the lot at a speed that has Max pressing her cheek to Chloe’s back. 

Max shouts, “No they won’t,” over the wind, but either Chloe doesn’t hear her or doesn’t believe her, because there’s no response.

\---

They’re passing a cliff. The ocean is below, slapping viciously against itself, dark and glassy and unforgiving. 

“We should just go over the fucking side!” Chloe yells, in a way that does, in fact, make Max kind of want to be dead.

She wonders if this is the reason Chloe even came back for her instead of getting the fuck out of dodge, if she wanted to have one voice to tell her not to dive off a cliff. She wonders if her own voice is going to be loud enough.

So she just tightens her arms around Chloe’s waist. “Pull over!” she shouts. “Chloe! Please- please- off the road, Chloe, please.”

They come to a short stop a few seconds later, buried in greenery and far enough from sea and light for Max to feel safe. She inhales shakily, and doesn’t move even when Chloe’s foot lowers to steady the still bike against the ground, just buries her face into Chloe’s sharp shoulder blade.

“Listen,” she whispers. “You either take me with you over the side of that cliff, or you don’t go anywhere.”

Every muscle in Chloe goes shuddering when she sighs. Max’s fingers dig into her stomach, the tightness of her abdomen, and keeps her eyes closed. Chloe’s jacket smells a little like lavender, a little like Rachel, and Max just holds her breath.

“If-if you died,” Chloe says, and her voice is smaller than it’s ever been, it doesn’t even sound like hers, “and it was my fault, that’s a one-way ticket to hell.”

Max just hugs her waist tighter. It probably hurts by now, but she doesn’t let go. “Wherever you go, I go.”

Chloe makes some sort of noise at that, but if it’s a hysterical laugh or a hysterical sob, Max can’t distinguish. Her hands are still gripping the handlebars, white knuckled, and Max isn’t sure if she wants Chloe to touch her, necessarily, but she knows they need to be touching. She’s not going to let go.

Chloe says, “Where’s Rachel, then? Do you think? Where’s her soul?”

That’s probably what everyone in Arcadia Bay is wondering, but Max hasn’t given it too much thought, yet, too morbid, too awful. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “They found her body on the beach.”

This time the sound Chloe makes is unmistakably that of a small, stabbed animal, and she leans over, head nearly touching her knees, Max leaning down with her even when her back aches, cheek still against Chloe’s jacket. “Jesus _Christ_.”

Max is so cold. She hugs Chloe tighter.

“Who does this?” Chloe whispers. “What kind of world does this, Max? She never _hurt_ anyone!”

Rachel Amber wore a string of broken hearts around her neck like diamonds, but Max doesn’t say that either. It’s too soon, and it doesn’t matter anyway. She presses her nose into the topmost knob of Chloe’s spine. “It’s not your fault, Chloe.”

Chloe shakes her head. “It was. I was with her last night, Max-”

“Chloe, you couldn’t have known, you couldn’t have done anything-”

“No, listen to me!” Chloe says, and her voice cracks, and she just sounds like devastation. Max lifts her head, then when Chloe doesn’t move, the rest of her body, stands up off the bike and comes to stand in front of Chloe instead. It’s always the best thing, to look at Chloe’s face.

And Chloe looks at her, looks up at her like she’s something she wants to trust. Max crosses her arms, takes a step closer to the bike, and Chloe shudders in a sigh and presses her forehead, just slightly, against Max’s hip. 

“I just need you to listen to me,” she whispers.

Max hesitates, only for a moment, before reaching up to stroke through Chloe’s hair, once. It’s tangled. She keeps going. “I’m listening to you.”

Chloe sighs again, sniffles, gathers her arms at Max’s waist so she can look back up at her. “She wanted to go for a ride last night,” she says, slow, easy to understand. “So I took her. We went by, you know, the usual places. The diner. The junkyard. The- god fucking dammit, the beach. She was really quiet. I thought she was sad, and fuck, Max- fuck. I didn’t want to do sadness, I said we should go get you, and she said- she said ‘Chloe, don’t you dare. She’s always in bed by eleven on school nights.’”

She chokes on a sob, and Max blinks her own tears away while Chloe isn’t looking, rakes another hand through Chloe’s hair and presses a kiss to the top of her head. 

“So- so when we got to the middle of that intersection at Slate Street, she said to stop, so I stop. In the middle of the street. She told me to turn around and close my eyes, and I said, what if I die, and she says well then you’ll have died for me, so I- I did. I don’t know, I guess I just-”

Even now, Max can’t listen to this, can’t bear to think about how carelessly Rachel held Chloe’s love and life in each hand sometimes. “And what happened?”

Chloe bites her lip, looks up at Max with big, uncertain eyes, like she’s twelve again. “I… she kissed me,” she says, and her voice breaks. Max closes her eyes. “She told me she loved me. She said you were too good for the both of us. Then when I opened my eyes, she was just… gone. And I’m never gonna see her again.”

Her voice breaks, hideously, at that, and she just starts sobbing, dragging Max hard into her. Max, for her part, chokes it all back, wraps Chloe so tight in her arms it probably hurts, ignores the cramping in her legs and buries her face in Chloe’s hair.

Salt, still. And the acrid, sweet smell of the dye.

“I didn’t protect her,” Chloe says, muffled, into the wool. “I can’t even protect you. She’s dead and it’s my fucking fault and I keep making the same goddamn mistakes- Max.” She looks up again, cheeks pink and eyes bright but clear. “I don’t have an alibi. I was out all night by myself after she left me.”

Stupidly, Max says, “But you didn’t do it.”

“But I can’t prove it,” Chloe whispers. “And it’s gonna look like I did. I’m gonna be the one who killed Rachel Amber.”

Just the sound of that makes Max’s head hurt, leaves a sour taste in her mouth. She tilts Chloe’s head up, just like Chloe had done for her with Nathan. “No, you’re not,” she says, feeling fierce. “We’re still here. I’m still here. We’re still gonna watch out for each other. I’m going to protect you like you did me, I’m going to be here for you.” She frames Chloe’s temples with her index fingers, looks hard at her. “Wherever you go, I go.”

Chloe blinks at her once, slack-jawed, and for a moment Max feels small and delusional with grandeur and grief under her stare. Then Chloe breathes in once, like a prayer, grabs Max by the back of the head and crashes their mouths together.

It’s probably an insult to Rachel’s memory- well, overall it’s all definitely an insult to Rachel’s memory- but especially how quickly Max sinks into it, how weak her knees get. It’s a little painful, too much teeth, and Chloe’s gasping against her more than anything, catching her lips between breaths. She pulls Max so hard against her that Max falls almost the whole way into her lap, nearly knocks over the bike. Max steadies them as best she can, as breathless as she is, fits both hands into Chloe’s hair and kisses her like Chloe’s hers. 

Chloe’s lips sting a little, with teeth and the memory of Rachel, but there will be other nights for Max and for Rachel there won’t be. Max keeps kissing her. The fact is, she can’t pretend this isn’t what she wanted, to kiss Chloe like she was allowed to. Rachel knew that. 

And now she’s gone.

Their faces are still together when Chloe starts talking again, each word a half-kiss. “The police are after me for sure by now,” she says, lips dragging against Max’s. “I’ve been gone too long and now I have a stowaway on my hands.”

“You should run,” Max whispers, and kisses her again, because she can, because she doesn’t know how many more she’s allowed. “Get far away from here, you’ve always wanted to.”

Chloe shakes her head, doesn’t look at Max but kisses her cheek, her eyelid. “I’m not going to leave you here.”

“Take me with you.”

That gets her Chloe’s eyes back, wide and surprised for a moment, and it’s perverse, a little, the stab of pride Max feels at being able to surprise her even now. But then she just shakes her head again. “Wouldn’t do that to you either. I have to stay here.”

“Chloe, no-”

She just shakes her head one more time, looking back up at Max with the tiny, unsure smile Max fell in love with at fourteen and is helpless for even now. “It’ll be okay,” she says. “I’ll have you, right?”

And Max just sobs at that, brings their mouths together again, sloppy and unpracticed but adoring, adoring. Chloe kisses her back, and Max hopes it isn’t pity, hopes it isn’t sadness or the desperation to fill a void that’s shaped in a way Max can’t mold herself to.

This time it’s her that pulls away, just to breathe, and when she opens her eyes again Chloe’s just looking at her. There’s a gentleness in her face that Max wants to fall asleep in, to die in.

“There’s just one thing,” Chloe whispers. “I have her earring. The feather.”

For a moment Max is too dizzy to comprehend. Then she frowns. “We can get rid of it.”

“No.”

“We can bury it. Right here.”

“Okay.”

So Chloe hands it to her, and Max kneels down, makes a sloppy mound in the dirt with her hands and buries the clotted blue feather beneath it, smears the dirt back in place carefully. When she looks up, still crouched, Chloe’s looking at her with the same gentleness.

“You are too good for us,” she says, and she sounds sad.

Max stands up again, accidentally smears Chloe’s cheek with dirt when she cups it, doesn’t care. “That’s not true,” she says, and kisses her again. It’s softer now, more innocent, less dirty even though all Max can taste now is dust and her own blood. 

“I’m sorry,” Chloe whispers, once, eyes closed, and this time Max is the one to just look at her. Chloe doesn’t open her eyes, just waits.

Max swallows, licks her own lips. “Do you want me to say I’m sorry?”

That opens Chloe’s eyes, and she searches Max’s face. “No,” she breathes, the sound of it impossibly small.

And it’s a relief. “Okay,” Max whispers back, “because I’m not,” and kisses Chloe again, the way she knows how, small, soft. 

She feels Chloe smile against it. “I lied about being sorry.”

Even if she’s lying about lying, Max doesn’t care, she doesn’t. “I love you.”

This time it’s Chloe’s breath that stutters across her face, and she pulls away to look at her again. For a second, Max is scared. Then something in Chloe’s face changes, and she isn’t anymore.

“I love you,” Chloe says, soft, “more than you know, okay? But you have to-”

A flashlight is shone, sudden and violent between them, and Max flinches but she doesn’t move, she doesn’t move back.

“All right, girls,” says Officer Berry’s weary voice. “Party’s over. Miss Price, please step away from your vehicle.”

She does, obediently and sarcastically slow, kisses Max’s ear once more to whisper “only just started,” into it, and they sit in the back of a police van all the way back to the station.

Chloe’s arrested, but it isn’t the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> "hannah, your sweater kink is outta control" - briana @explosionshark
> 
> Been a while, right? Guess who finished her first year of college!
> 
> Wanted to ease into summer with a oneshot- finished Twin Peaks a while ago and completely adored it, thought Life is Strange could maybe have been better if it stuck a little closer to source material. Hope I did the series justice! More writing to come soon.


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